I compared the performance of MySQL 5.6.11 versus 4.0.30 using a read-only workload with sysbench. Performance was much better for 5.6.11 in most cases. At low-concurrency MySQL 4.0 was a bit faster. MySQL 5.6.11 was faster at high-concurrency and when doing many page reads per second. The product has improved a lot since I started using MySQL. I followed most of my advice on building and configur